Chapters 17-20 Se June



Theme

(solid paragraph with textual evidence)
A constant recurring theme in the book Dracula is the supernatural being put back with science. This theme was seen before when Lucy was saved numerous times by blood transfusions which is a scientific discovery. This theme recurs in chapters seventeen to twenty. " The rats were multiplying in thousands, and we moved out. Lord Godalming lifted one of the dogs and carrying him in, placed him on the floor. The instant his feet touched the ground he seemed to recover his courage, and rushed at his natural enemies. They fled before him so fast that before he had shaken the life out of a score, the other dogs,who had by now been lifted in the same manner, had but small prey ere the whole mass had vanished"(Stoker 222). This quote shows how dogs were able to scare and ward off the rats that were one of Dracula's minions. Dogs have been naturally and scientifically the predators of the rats and they manage to ward away the rats that were endangering the men. Lord Godalming must have anticipated something of a similar sort and had prepared in advance the dogs since when he blew the whistle the dogs came flying to the aid of the company. This is a good representation of the science versus supernatural as the dogs represent the scientific justification and theory of predators while the rats represented the supernatural influence that Dracula has over some animals such as the wolves and bats.


Critical Passage

(solid paragraph with textual evidence)
In this section, it is important to know about the midnight incursion to Count Dracula's house. Before the companions, including Dr. Seward, Jonathan Harker, Van Helsing and Lord Goldaming, went inside the house, Van Helsing shouts "In manus tuas, Domine"(Stoker 220). This is interesting as these were the same exact words that Jesus said as he gave himself to the great Lord. This is very symbolic as it shows how Van Helsing is relying on religion to help him and he himself is giving up to the Lord's mercy because this might be his own and everyone else's death.

Literary Device

(2identify and quote the device; explain how the device contributes to the meaning of the text)
"He is devil" (Stoker 209)
This metaphor shows how the people imaged Dracula and thoughts of him. He is considered and compared to the devil himself since he seems to be wreaking havoc everywhere and killing people such as Lucy and turning them into one of his own kinds. This is important since it shows the whole conflict of vampire against human or more broadly good versus evil.

"He is even more prisoner than the slave of the galley" (Stoker 211)
This is another metaphor that shows a characteristic of Count Dracula. Dracula is a being of the night since he cannot be walking around in daylight. This shows an advantage that the people over him and Van Helsing tries to emphasize this point to encourage the people and use it to their advantage. This is important as night represents evil and it directly links Dracula to night, thus to evil.

Reflection

In our presentation, I found out many flaws that were in our plan for our discussion. The biggest flaw was the questions we threw at the students. It was too hard of a question to quickly debate at with no notice before hand. This made everyone confused and unable to answer or debate thoroughly. It did not help that I was not part of making the activity but part of making the questions since we had to finish the work in a limited amount of time. I think it was better that we divided the class into two smaller discussions as the people seemed to have less pressured and easily contributed to the debate. I think they contributed freely as there was less people and higher chance that they would have a considerable amount of new points that had not been brought up before. I think those were some points we did well and badly.I think I learned from our mistakes and would do better if we had another chance at being discussion leader.